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architecture and design magazineTue, 31 Mar 2015 21:00:38 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Turato Architects raises Gumno House above the forest canopy of a Croatian islandhttp://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/31/turato-architects-holiday-home-pool-croatia-island-gumno-house/
http://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/31/turato-architects-holiday-home-pool-croatia-island-gumno-house/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 07:00:04 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=671090A swimming pool on a "massive concrete cone" sits in front of this summer house, which has been elevated above the tree canopy of a Croatian island to offer views out to sea (+ slideshow). Croatian office Turato Architects designed the three-storey dwelling as a summer home for a couple and their two adult children on the forested island of Krk, which is situated […]

Croatian office Turato Architects designed the three-storey dwelling as a summer home for a couple and their two adult children on the forested island of Krk, which is situated in an inlet of the northern Adriatic Sea.

But once completed, the couple uprooted from their city home to take up permanent residence on the island, reserving their mainland home only for weekend breaks.

Named Gumno House, the property occupies the site of a disused gumno – an agricultural structure used for threshing grain that typically comprises a circular platform surrounded by a stone wall. The architects restored the gumno to create a garden folly that is used as an outdoor seating area.

"Gumnos were a place of labour, endeavour and care, and a framework for consistent and coherent social interaction," explained Turato Architects.

"[They] served as spaces for celebrating a high crop yield, as well as a meeting place where the locals made decisions on important issues that affected their community."

"It was decided that gumno, together with the circular dry stone wall, should be restored, and that the cultivated garden, driveway, orchard, and olive grove should become a kind of a contemporary park, a reanimated place where the family would meet with their guests, friends, and the locals of Risika," added the studio.

Project architects Idis Turato and Marko Liović decided to place the three-storey house at the back of the plot on highest part of the site – allowing it to be elevated above the gumno.

The cross-shaped plan of the upper storey creates four large boxy bay windows that survey the surrounding countryside and sea.

Three bedrooms and bathrooms occupy three branches of the cross, while a lounge is situated in the fourth arm that projects towards the sea.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

A dormer window rises from the axis of the cross to light a stairwell at the core of the property. The steps descend to an open-plan living and dining area that occupies the entire middle floor, which is fronted by a large terrace.

The swimming pool occupies one corner of the elevated terrace, supported by the thick triangular column that the architects describe as a "massive concrete cone". This hollow structure provides the depth for the pool, but also houses a staircase.

A driveway encircles the base of the faceted concrete podium, while the terrace platform provides a shelter for the main entrance and a car parking space. Inside, a large cellar is used to store wine and oil, but functions as an entertainment space.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/31/turato-architects-holiday-home-pool-croatia-island-gumno-house/feed/5Croatian designer creates giant light show by illuminating shipyard craneshttp://www.dezeen.com/2014/05/31/croatian-designer-creates-giant-light-show-by-illuminating-shipyard-cranes/
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/05/31/croatian-designer-creates-giant-light-show-by-illuminating-shipyard-cranes/#commentsSat, 31 May 2014 19:00:20 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=467445Designer Dean Skira has turned eight cranes at one of the world's oldest working shipyards into a giant light show, creating a new tourist attraction in Pula, Croatia (+ slideshow). Architectural lighting designer Dean Skira lit up the cranes at Uljanik Shipyard with 73 RGB LED spotlights weighing 40kg each, as part of a project called […]

Designer Dean Skira has turned eight cranes at one of the world's oldest working shipyards into a giant light show, creating a new tourist attraction in Pula, Croatia (+ slideshow).

Architectural lighting designer Dean Skira lit up the cranes at Uljanik Shipyard with 73 RGB LED spotlights weighing 40kg each, as part of a project called Lighting Giants.

"The idea is partly related to the time in my youth spent practicing rowing at a club opposite Uljanik," Skira explained. "Every day I looked at the cranes that dominate the skyline of Pula bay."

Green and yellow lights represent Pula's official colours

First conceived in 2000, the light show made its debut in May 2014 after receiving some private funding and a £32,174 (300,000 HRK) grant from the Croatian Ministry of Tourism.

"When the town authorities started considering relocating the shipyard, I came up with the idea of highlighting them instead," Skira said.

A wi-fi based remote control system allows up to 16,000 different colours to shine on the cranes, while a series of blinds are used to prevent light pollution.

Pula's Lighting Giants display happens every night from 9pm-12am, starting on the hour every hour and lasting for 15 minutes each time.

"The industrial revolution in the early nineteenth-century has brought us some new monuments, which still stand and move every day in the gentle dance of steel," Skira said.

"This dance has gone on for almost 200 years and I wanted to create a colourful stage in which they perform."

The cranes are still in everyday use, which meant that Skira had to work with the shipyard's engineers to ensure lighting did not interfere with their regular working activities.

"The challenges were mostly connected to the positioning and focusing of lights, finding the right spot for the lighting fixtures in order to get the desired effect with minimum glare," he told Dezeen.

"Hard work, lots of fine tuning and an excellent collaboration with all the parties involved made this project possible."

Built in 1856, Uljanik is one of the oldest shipyards in the world and has since become a focal point of Pula, on the tip of the Istrian peninsula.

"I think the [Lighting Giants] project managed to emphasise this distinctive symbol of the city and celebrate its industrial heritage," Skira noted.

"I hope this project will be interesting for visitors and will help Pula to be more recognisable on the world map."

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2014/05/31/croatian-designer-creates-giant-light-show-by-illuminating-shipyard-cranes/feed/4Concrete-clad sports hall by Idis Turato features both faceted and bumpy facadeshttp://www.dezeen.com/2013/12/12/concrete-sports-hall-idis-turato-faceted-and-bumpy-facades/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/12/12/concrete-sports-hall-idis-turato-faceted-and-bumpy-facades/#commentsThu, 12 Dec 2013 15:06:42 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=397393Faceted concrete blocks protrude from one side of this sports hall in Croatia, while its bumpy southern and western walls were made by casting concrete panels over a bed of stones (+ slideshow). Designed by Croatian architect Idis Turato, the building is located in the small town of Krk, on the island of the same […]

Designed by Croatian architect Idis Turato, the building is located in the small town of Krk, on the island of the same name, and it functions as both a sports hall for a primary school and an events space for the local community.

The building sits within a new public square surrounded by a mixture of churches, monasteries and school buildings, and the architect created different concepts for each of the building's elevations to correspond with the varying architectural styles.

Photograph by Idis Turato

"One of the direct inspirations for all the facades and external walls of the hall were the existing walls of the surrounding monasteries," Turato told Dezeen.

Photograph by Domagoj Blazevic

"The wall is the main concept of the hall, being different regarding the context that is in front of it," he continued. "Each one of those monastery walls, dating back from different periods, have different textures and also different sizes."

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

The northern side of the building fronts the town square and features a faceted concrete surface with a terrazzo finish and sliced openings that form windows.

"The monoliths on the facade that face the square are monumental and dominant," said the architect. "They accentuate the representative character of the newly formed large public square in town, and are a direct reply towards the high towers on the square."

The southern and western facades are built over the archeological remains of another monastery and a chapel, which were uncovered during the construction process. These dry stone walls informed the design of the new concrete elevations built on top, which were cast against small stones to create a textured surface that inverts the appearance of the existing structures.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

"These 'concrete innards', as we call them, are a negative of the dry stone walls," explained Turato. "Our wish was to make contemporary but simple concrete prefabricates that are visually different and recognisable, but also blend in as a continuation of the existing walls and their textures."

Photograph by Domagoj Blazevic

The remaining elevation faces the school and is finished in white render to match the appearance of its neighbour, which was designed by Idis Turato a few years earlier.

Photograph by Domagoj Blazevic

The interior of the building is decorated in bold colours that stand out against the raw concrete interior. A first-floor balcony provides seating during matches and events, plus an underground tunnel creates a private route into the school.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

Slabs of red terrazzo provide the surface of the surrounding square, intended to contrast with the pale colour of the concrete walls.

Here's a project description from Turato Architecture:

Sports Hall and Public Square in Krk

One of the main focuses of the Turato Architects' Hall and Square project in Krk was to finish an architectural dialogue started way back in 2005, when Idis Turato completed an elementary school, Fran Krsto Frankopan (with his former studio "Randić Turato").

Photograph by Ivan Dorotic

The new hall, which opened shortly before the summer of 2013, is situated in the very vicinity of the above-mentioned school, just across a narrow pedestrian street. The completion of the new sports building and public square was a crown achievement of the architect's quest to complete an integral urban ensemble on top of Krk's old town, thereby creating a newly defined focal point of high importance.

Photograph by Ivan Dorotic

The newly built hall, aside from being a gym facility for the school pupils – who can now easily access it through an underground corridor - aims to meet demands of the local community as well, housing sports events as well as future cultural activities and public festivities on a larger scale. This is the reason why the north-eastern corner of the hall's facade opens up onto the square, providing functional continuity of passing through and enabling them to become almost one.

Photograph by Ivan Dorotic

The school-hall-square assembly is surrounded by several churches and monasteries, as well as by two tall church towers that act as the square's vertical accents. Together, they all define and describe this wide public space, which, depending on occasion, can function both as a secular and an ecclesiastical pedestrian zone.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

On the very site of the new hall there used to be an old student dorm, which had been used in past as a gym facility for the school. Prior to the hall construction it had to be demolished. The demolition, however, unearthed several new and important archaeological discoveries on the site, thus creating a whole new context for the hall itself.

Photograph by Jure Zivkovic

All that had been found on the site had to be preserved as discovered. The architects took this fact to be crucial in redefining the concept according to the new input. This affected directly the very organisational scheme of the project. The excavated and preserved church and monastery walls were to become integral parts of the new building, with new walls and facades of the hall emerging directly from the restored, older ones.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

Yet another contextual element was important in forming the shape and size of the building. These are the high walls, seen throughout the old town of Krk, especially around the aforementioned monasteries, enclosing the town lots, lining the narrow streets of the town. These site-specific structures surround the hall itself as well.

Photograph by Domagoj Blazevic

Behind these walls different stories are taking place daily, balancing between the public and the private, depending on the usage of the space enclosed. The high walls of the western hall facade, next to the Franciscan monastery, are then but a continuation of these town alleys. This is where the story of the walls, their origin, context and their shape began, resulting in variety of the facade walls, formally corresponding to the context, input and location.

Photograph by Ivan Dorotic

Although seemingly set "back", on secondary surfaces (the western alley and southern facade), the most recognisable and by far the most unique element of the hall itself is a wall consisting of original and striking prefabricated concrete elements. The architect named these the innards due to their origin and their fabrication, and the ambiguity of the impression they leave upon the viewer, due to a formal factor of its (un)attractiveness.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

The innards are in fact unique precast elements produced as a negative of a dry stone wall, or more precisely - made by placing stones in a wooden mould, covering them with a PVC foil and pouring concrete over it all. In this way the negative of the stones forms the "face" of the precast element. This inverse building process, a simple and basic fabrication with a distinct visual impact, is an invention of the hall's author. It happened as a result of researching simple building materials with a crafty bricklayer, with whom the architect had collaborated on several projects in the past as well.

Photograph by Jure Zivkovic

On the other hand, the most representative facade of the hall, the one visually dominating the square, is the facade constructed out of six impressively large concrete monoliths, weighing up to 23 tons. The monolithic blocks are finished off with a layer of 'terrazzo', which is an ancient technique usually used for floor finishes, requiring hours of polishing by hand.

Photograph by Domagoj Blazevic

Here, however, the terrazzo is redefined and used vertically, fittingly renamed into a "vertical terrazzo". While this sudden vertical use of the finish creates a shiny and finely shaded facade, its "normal" use, on horizontal surfaces, is recontextualised and rethought once again, since this finish, usually 'reserved' for interiors, is now used for exterior surfaces of the public square.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

The red colour of the square's terrazzo floor panels is in contrast to the lightness of the hall's facade. Its smoothness and slip-resistance is achieved by application of a layer of epoxy after polishing.

Photograph by Sandro Lendler

The fourth facade, facing the school, with its formal look and finish (done in plaster lime mortar) confirms that the new building remains in a direct communication with the existing educational facility, sharing its function.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2013/12/12/concrete-sports-hall-idis-turato-faceted-and-bumpy-facades/feed/4Stjepan Radić Square by NFOhttp://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/21/stjepan-radic-town-square-by-nfo/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/21/stjepan-radic-town-square-by-nfo/#commentsWed, 21 Aug 2013 19:00:14 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=348085Croatian firm NFO has revitalised the main square in the seaside city of Crikvenica by adding steps, terraces and textured paving to delineate the different zones (+ slideshow). NFO won a public competition to transform the town square, which is linked to a promenade and provides inhabitants with an open public space looking out across the […]

Croatian firm NFO has revitalised the main square in the seaside city of Crikvenica by adding steps, terraces and textured paving to delineate the different zones (+ slideshow).

NFO won a public competition to transform the town square, which is linked to a promenade and provides inhabitants with an open public space looking out across the Adriatic Sea.

The architects kept their interventions to a minimum to maintain the views and enable the space to perform various functions.

Trees lining the promenade as it approaches the open plaza continue around its edges, providing shaded terraces for the eateries located along the perimeter.

An existing slope at the back of the site has been converted into a series of steps and terraces that create seating and separate the square from the streets that lead into the city.

A road running between the square and the marina has been paved in cobbles to create a haptic surface that encourages drivers to reduce their speed, while even bumpier cobbles warn pedestrians that they are nearing the road.

"The road is disconnected from the pedestrian zone with tactile barriers in tessellation for safety and to inform about the road without creating a visual barrier towards the sea," the architects explain.

The redevelopment of Crikvenica's public spaces is set to continue with the future renovation of a park and another square elsewhere in the city.

The public competition for regulation of the center of Crikvenica was announced in 2011 and the first phase of the project is now completed. After the works on shore line expansion 20 m towards the sea finished in 2012 first phase project, Stijepan Radić Square was completed in 2013.

With finalization of the main city square Crikvenica finally got the first representative public space. Next phases involve regulation of the rest of the city center including the Park of the fallen for homeland and the construction of City pavilion along with another square.

Concept of the square derives from The promenade and its main element, the tree line, one of the main traditions of city Crikvenica, that used to stop at the Stjepan Radić Square. The goal was to patch that crack and, as a result, to reintegrate south-east part of Crikvenica as a cohesive part of the city. That way Crikvenica becomes a central point of the long stretch of seaside promenades between small costal towns Dramalj and Selce and its public contents along the shoreline.

A tree line as a main element of the promenade forms a backbone which collects different public contents creating various ambients along the promenade. Stjepan Radić Square becomes a center towards which all the seaside movement gravitates and, as such, demands a large open space.

The promenade is pulled inside with its public contents (terraces) and along with the tree line it forms the main square with the only clear sea view in Crikvenica. Strong interventions were avoided so that the various usage possibilities on the main square would be possible.

The existing ground height difference is used to differentiate terraces from the open space of the square forming a staircase / sitting area on the contact zone of the square and terraces. Shaded terraces for catering contents became an audience space towards the sea and the square. Over-hangs were put among the tree tops for the protection from the sun and rain without damaging the main (clear) ambient of the square.

Viewpoints

The road as a negative factor with its mild and frequent denivelations "stone waves" in contrast with the square becomes an attraction for the cars and for the pedestrians, enabling comfortable and slow movement of all participants in traffic. The road is disconnected from the pedestrian zone with tactile barriers in tessellation for safety and to inform about the road without creating a visual barrier towards the sea.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/21/stjepan-radic-town-square-by-nfo/feed/2Emanuel Hostel by Lana Vitas Gruićhttp://www.dezeen.com/2013/06/20/emanuel-hostel-by-lana-vitas-gruic-and-toni-radan/
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/06/20/emanuel-hostel-by-lana-vitas-gruic-and-toni-radan/#commentsThu, 20 Jun 2013 09:53:07 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=326781Bunk bed booths provide sleeping sanctuaries at this hostel in Split, Croatia, by local designer Lana Vitas Gruić (+ slideshow). The new hostel houses 15 beds divided between two rooms accessed from a lobby, which features branding also by Gruić of Atom Design. In the largest room, colourful units with simple white rails and ladders each […]

The new hostel houses 15 beds divided between two rooms accessed from a lobby, which features branding also by Gruić of Atom Design.

In the largest room, colourful units with simple white rails and ladders each house two beds, while the blue block in the centre of the largest room is double-sided to accommodate four.

Two more units are situated in a smaller all-white room, with an extra bed raised high above the ground that appears to balance on lockers.

Desks and shelves accompanied by a mixture of chair styles offer space for guests to eat or use laptops within the dorms.

Photos of lesser-known sites around the city have been blown up to cover walls.

Owners Mila and Toni Radan worked with Gruić to convert the disused apartment, located close to the city's port and historic Diocletian's Palace. "From the beginning, it was our desire to create a comfortable, functional and modern space that has the spirit of a Split street," they say.

Split has got a new hostel. Emanuel Hostel is located in Tolstoy Street and is part of the apartment house from the first half of the 20th century. Mila and Toni Radan, the owners of the hostel, adapt completely ruined apartment into a hostel with 15 beds. Toni, who is otherwise engaged in adaptations of similar objects, creates forms and deployment of space, and interior design and visual identity is done by Split designer Lana Vitas Gruić (Atom Design Studio).

From the beginning, it was our desire to create a comfortable, functional and modern space that has the spirit of a Split street. The design was created as a product of fusion, conjuction of the hostel's name meaning, identity of the Mediterranean climate and the tendency of creating a design hostel. The style is eclectic, as evidenced by the contrast of clear, modern lines of bed forms with chairs and accessories from the 50s and 60s of the last century.

In addition to being a place to relax, refresh and sleep, the hostel can serve as a space for socialising - a kind of a living room with internet service and free breakfast so it does not have exclusively a transitional character of typical of hostels, but a warm, pleasant and airy space that is not only a "dorm".

Since in the Mediterranean life is always happening outside, on the streets, and there is a strong culture of cafes, we transferred that same street and exterior onto the hostel's interior walls with photos of Split motifs. To avoid banalisation, photo-wallpapers' motifs are not the much-vaunted ones of Split such as towers, peristyle, waterfront or street moments of a full market-place and fish-market. We have tried to achieve a fine blend of an outdoor and indoor living, a street object like barrel beside an armchair which is part of someone's living room. From such approach we interpret relaxed quality, almost modesty, that nonetheless does not occur by accident, but as a result of a methodical work and experience.

Hostel Emanuel is a place with a story and a family project which primarily arises from the enthusiasm and the special spirit of its owners and all who participated in that process.